brian wilson

Listen to a slightly different version of Brian Wilson’s unreleased early song “Thank Him” than the one found on the digital-download-only “The Big Beat.”

Why would a major record label quietly issue Brian Wilson and Beach Boys-related odds and ends from 1963 in digital-download-only form now?

The answer lies in British copyright law, which allows the rights to this material to expire in 50 years — in this case, at the end of 2013. This also explains some recent early 1960s Bob Dylan reissues and the Beatles’ new iTunes-only “Bootleg Recordings 1963.”

But if the recordings are released officially before then, even in low-key, underpublicized form such as “The Big Beat 1963,” the copyright extends for another 20 years, during which other U.K. companies can’t profit by issuing them.

For once, consumers benefit from the corporate maneuvering, as we get to hear long-buried Wilson oddities and obscurities available previously in piecemeal only from bootleggers.

These often-rudimentary demos reveal what happened when Wilson was first turned loose to follow his instincts in the recording studio.

They include 10 tracks by the Honeys, the girl group consisting of Wilson’s future wife Marilyn Rovell, her sister Diane and Ginger Blake. They range from chirpy (“Once You’ve Got Him”) to surprisingly gritty (“Funny Boy”) to utterly charming (“Bye bye, deuce coupe,” they gloat on “Little Dirt Bike”).

The full-on girl group numbers, “You Brought It All on Yourself” and a cover of the Palisades’ (actually the Cookies’) Brill Building classic “Make the Night a Little Longer” by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, are the most impressive, showing them to be more than just a vanity project.

Early Wilson collaborators Bob & Sheri get credit for “The Big Beat,” a tribute to 1950s rock ’n’ roll that later morphed into “Do You Remember?” on the Beach Boys’ 1965 “All Summer Long” album, and “Ride Away,” a lively Dion-styled doo-wop number.

The nuttiest tracks among those credited to Wilson or the Beach Boys are “First Rock and Roll Dance,” a wild, lurching instrumental with screeching sax and scorching guitar that sounds like nothing else the Hawthorne quintet ever recorded, as well as the novelty tune “Mother May I,” in which Brian Wilson’s falsetto pleadings are met with a snarling vocal response by the unidentified “mother” in question.

As for the gems, there’s an early demo of the Wilson and Roger Christian song, “I Do,” with a marvelous Wilson choirboy vocal, spirited hand claps and not much else, except a palpable sense of the magic of which Wilson already was capable. “Gonna Hustle You” is even better, offering a glimpse of the elements of the classic Beach Boys vocal sound as they first begin to coalesce. (It would later be redone with less lascivious lyrics by Jan & Dean as “New Girl in School.”)

Advertisement

Despite the lack of polish, these are not bottom-of-the-barrel scrapings. Hearing Wilson work with different performers in these various genres — a girl group, doo-wop, 1950s rock ’n’ roll and more — provides a fascinating look into the brilliance that lay just around the corner for him once he found his own voice.